Closet Spaceship Part 12

When I first told Reggie about my visit with Sean, he laughed.

I sat in the conference room, watching him fill a cup with coffee. By the time he sat down next to me, he’d grown serious.

“You sure that was Sean?” he asked. “Doesn’t sound like him.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Am I sure it was Sean? Really?”

“Okay, okay.” He took a drink. “Never seen him run from anything before.”

“You talked to him,” I said. “What’d you say?”

“I said you’re an ax murderer.”

My eyeballs were getting a lot of exercise. “What’d you really say?”

“I told him who you are, is all. What’d you do?”

“I waved an ax at him,” I said. “I guess I can’t really blame him. If some strange woman appeared outside my door and said she was from the past, I’d lock the door, too.”

“Yeah, but I told him you’re okay,” Reggie said. “There’s got to be something else.”

He took another drink.

I thought back to the conversation, trying to remember when Sean seemed to get scared.

“I told him I’m your friend, then I told him to call you …” I was thinking out loud.

“What’d you say after he talked to me?” Reggie asked.

“I don’t remember. Uh, something about people in 2015 knowing him.”

“Huh.” He took another drink.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Maybe that’s it! I said people in 2015 knew him and they might think he was fictional. What if he thinks they don’t think he’s fictional?”

When I get excited, I tend to bundle a lot of words together and fling them outward all at the same time. It makes me spend a lot of time rewriting, but that’s when I’m writing—it’s a little hard to rewrite what I say.

Reggie looked puzzled. “What?”

“He thinks people are reading about him,” I explained. “That’s got to be intimidating, right?”

“But what about during his trial? Everybody was reading about him then.”

“Oh.” This was enough to deflate my theory.

“Listen, you know him better than anybody,” Reggie said. “Keep thinking.”

It’s not easy being a writer. (Wait, it’s never easy? Okay, sometimes when the words are flowing, maybe. Other times, not so much. But I still love it.)

I sat back in my chair, thinking about all the articles written about Sean at the time. I guess that wouldn’t be fun, having your name plastered all over the place followed by the words “criminal” or “smuggler” or “convicted.”

Yet that hadn’t affected Sean. He’d been himself when he met the crew, not bitter or ready to slam a door in their faces. And now it was done …

“Okay,” I said.

“I figured you’d get it,” Reggie said.

I nodded. “And you got it a long time ago.”

Reggie shrugged.

“He thought he put all of that behind him,” I said. “And those articles were just about superficial stuff, not the real Sean. He reads fiction: he knows what a writer can do, digging around in a character’s head all the time. So I’m bringing back the past and revealing more about him than he might want to have known.”

I wanted to find Sean and apologize to him.

“I’m not really evil,” I said. “Am I?”

Reggie laughed. “Nah. Don’t worry, he’ll get over it.”

I hope he’s right.

(Happy Easter.)